'This was a Columbine waiting to happen'

[BadgerKid]

By Nathan Phelps

Two Green Bay East High School students taken into custody Thursday were depressed, wanted to die at the hands of police officers and allegedly told friends that they might explode bombs at school, witnesses told police.

Information obtained Thursday by a school resource officer at East led police to a cache of bombs and weapons.

Police searched homes in the 300 block of South Van Buren Street and 1000 block of Cherry Street and found sawed-off shotguns, automatic weapons, pistols, ammunition, and several bombs, according to Green Bay Police Chief Craig Van Schyndle. Bomb-making materials, camouflage clothing, helmets and gas masks were also found along with suicide notes left by the 17-year-old boys.

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060915/GPG0101/609150615/1978

[lapfog_1]

1. Not waiting to happen... ABOUT to happen. - n/t

[Parche]

2. terror

Damn Al-Kida is training them way too young.....

[slackmaster]

3. Time to play "Identify Those Weapons"

http://cmsimg.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=U0&Date=20060915&Category=GPG0101&ArtNo=609150615&Ref=AR&Profile=1978&MaxW=300

From front to back (right to left) I see a Crossman BB gun, some kind of toy weapon, perhaps an Airsoft (the one with the orange muzzle), a muzzle brake on the barrel of a shotgun, could be just about anything, and an ordinary looking semiautomatic shotgun, I'll guess a 20-gauge Remington.

No semiautomatic rifles, no sawed-off shotguns, no automatics, no military type weapons identifiable.

ETA Kudos to the police for stopping this before anything bad happened.

Oh, and the story gets 10 points for this line:

"They're always quiet over there," said 19-year-old neighbor Sophia Saldana, whose sister goes to school at East.

:dunce:

[Endangered Specie]

6. there could have been more boxes...

Im guessing they planned to do most the killing by fire/explosive.

[michreject]

14. Exactly

He wouldn't be holding a cardboard box with five steel rifles in it. It would weigh 40/50 pounds.

[Paladin]

17. Yeah, Because Playing "Identify Those Weapons".......

....is always more crucial to you gun militants than discussing the actual incidents in which said weapons were, or almost were, involved......

[don954]

4. If we wanted to use the Bush Doctrine to combat these terrorists

we would have to bomb Green Bay... Sounds wacky right? So why does it not sound as wacky when we bomb another nation's cities to get some terrorists?

[leesa]

8. That's right. Occupy Wisconsin and smoke those terrorists out!

Carpet bombing for at least ten months will solve the problem and make them all democracy-loving Christians once again. Worked in Afghanistan.

[goclark]

16. Bush is the biggest terrorist in the US right now

Remember McVeigh , who was he really working for?

[rodeodance]

5. Very troubled kids

[MaraJade]

10. The kids who harrased them to the point of planning this madness

are the REAL troubled ones. It is too DAMN BAD that the school did nothing to stop the
hazing and harrassment.

Victimized kids will continue to plot revenge until the bullying is stopped. After all, school is NOT for the purpose of bothering or antagonizing others--it is for education.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. Thank goodness they were discovered before they did anything!

Now I just hope they receive the care they need rather than a sentence designed to exact revenge on those responsible for Columbine and similar incidents...

[MaraJade]

11. The BULLIES who harrassed them are the ones who need care!

Now, with this set of victims in jail, the bullying will continue, simply shifting to other victims, perhaps more helpless ones.

When are we going to wake up and smell the coffee on this!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. They all need care...

...the bullies and the victims.

[MaraJade]

9. The only way to stop this kind of madness is to

stop the bullying and hazing in schools. Kids who are cast by the more popular kids in schools as
"outcasts," or who are abused and mistreated by their peers, will take one of two paths--

either they will kill themselves in despair--

http://www.jaredstory.com/serious_bullying.html

or else they will seek to retaliate against their tormentors violently.

For far too long, adults have viewed the hazing in high schools and colleges as something that is
"normal." "That's life," they say, or "boys will be boys." The victim is told to toughen up or to stop "doing" something so they will "fit in." The torment caused by the bullies is completely ignored. This is crap. The bullies need to rightfully absorb the blame for the mistreatment and the backlash of violence.

Fortunately, some victims are now fighting back through court action.

http://www.tonganoxiemirror.com/section/frontpage_lead/story/7955

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=2256089&page=1

Personally, I have warned the administration at my daughter's high school that I have a personal
"zero tolerance" policy on hazing and harrassment. If any of the local "queen bees" or "mean girls" pick on my child, I will sue their parents into poverty and have the kids arrested. More parents need to get proactive about this.

After all, if your victimized child plans to get back at the bullies, they will be jailed. I say tit for tat is fair. I will ruin the life of any kid in the school who picks on my daughter. Period.

[keroro gunsou]

13. *makes a mental note*

*mental note: be nice to brensgrrl's kids*

i have no children, unless you count my laptop, so i can't really understand that whole protective instinct thingie.... but i was bullied in school so i can identity with those two options...

fortunately, my abject laziness and apathy at the time worked out well for all concerned...

i can't imagine kids today being any nicer now than when i was in school, and i went to a private school.

(not knocking my school, i got a good education, but i could have done without the bullsh1t from the other students)

[benEzra]

15. That's excellent...

For far too long, adults have viewed the hazing in high schools and colleges as something that is
"normal." "That's life," they say, or "boys will be boys." The victim is told to toughen up or to stop "doing" something so they will "fit in." The torment caused by the bullies is completely ignored. This is crap. The bullies need to rightfully absorb the blame for the mistreatment and the backlash of violence.

Fortunately, some victims are now fighting back through court action.

http://www.tonganoxiemirror.com/section/frontpage_lead/...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=2256089&p...

Personally, I have warned the administration at my daughter's high school that I have a personal
"zero tolerance" policy on hazing and harrassment. If any of the local "queen bees" or "mean girls" pick on my child, I will sue their parents into poverty and have the kids arrested. More parents need to get proactive about this.

After all, if your victimized child plans to get back at the bullies, they will be jailed. I say tit for tat is fair. I will ruin the life of any kid in the school who picks on my daughter. Period.

That is an excellent approach.

My wife was the victim of serious bullying/harassment in school. She's 35, and she STILL has emotional scars from that crap.

I agree with you 100% that parents and the school need to stand up for the human dignity of the kids. Standing by and letting a kid be abused under the guise of "toughening them up" is morally repugnant.

We've tried to teach both our kids (7 and 5) to be confident, and I've already seen my 5 y.o. daughter stand up to a bully on the playground and tell him to back off, but it is still an issue that concerns me, as our son is a special-needs kid (intellectually sharp, but has speech and motor-coordination delays and is small for his age, which pretty much paints a big target on his back). The school they attend is very good about creating a positive atmosphere, so no problems so far, but it is something that we are watching VERY closely.

[oblivious]

18. I agree with your approach but not this part of your analysis.

You say kids who are abused will take one of two paths:
a. kill themselves
b. retaiate violently

These are obviously very rare reactions. Most kids just adapt in one way or another without violence to themselves or their tormentors.